[quote] & <blockquote> aren't parsing a URL in a citation as per BBCode & HTML

Support
1

I’m a newbie so apologies in advance if this isn’t the correct location to flag this. I searched Google, discourse.org, & commonmark.org but haven’t found anything yet.

Citing a URL in addition to just a name or article title means readers can easily check your source & read further if they choose (I assume it’s also better for SEO).

On phpBB forums, the following BBCode will put a link into the citation:

[quote="In [url=http://example.com/]First Post[/url], Bob"]

On WordPress, the following HTML effectively does the same thing:

<blockquote><cite><a href="http://example.com">First Post</a>, Bob</cite>
Hello this is my quote.
</blockquote>

The screenshot below shows examples of how they render on my forum & blog:

Screenshots%20of%20quotes%20with%20URL%20in%20citation
Screenshots%20of%20quotes%20with%20URL%20in%20citation1170×785 44.7 KB

But here’s how they render on Discourse:

[quote=“In First Post, Bob”]

First Post, Bob Hello this is my quote.
2 
[quote="TEU, post:1, topic:82572"]
On phpBB forums
[/quote]

This is how you would do it on Discourse.

We support some BBCode but by no means attempt to support all of it.

2 Likes
3

Thanks Sam for the prompt response! Great to know there’s a way to link to other posts on the same forum but is there a way to link to external URLs?

For more academic forums, being able to easily cite with a URL is really important.

I’ve also asked on commonmark.org too, although they don’t seem to support any citation, which is very puzzling.

4

Sure, we have oneboxing, and this answers what it is What is a onebox? :star_struck: be sure to check it out.

1 Like
5

Wow, that’s certainly a great feature! But sorry, I wasn’t clear, what I think we need is to extend the citation’s internal linking (which you demonstrated) to full URL linking. If it’s too tricky to use the phpBB/BBCode & WordPress/HTML syntax, perhaps something similar to the way internal linking is done eg:

[quote="TEU, url:example.com"]
On phpBB forums
[/quote]
6

Sorry I am unclear what you are asking?

7

Offsite quotes to be expressed in BBCode.

Which you would do like this:

It’s been a while, but Florida did a smart thing.

original source

Or like this:

But I guess he wants some extra quote metadata.

I think there are plenty of other ways of achieving this for now.

1 Like
8

Discourse allows us to clearly show the author of a quote at the top quote block/box using [quote="Author"]Foo bar[/quote] to produce:

That’s extended to allow an internal link to where the author made the quote, again it’s neatly at the top quote block/box. i.e. [quote="Author, post:1, topic:82572"]Foo bar[/quote]

However, I’m encouraging us to consider extending this slightly further, to allow a URL to where the author made the quote, again keeping it neatly at the top quote block/box.

Websites have this functionality using the <cite><a href="http://example.com">Another Site</a></cite> HTML within a <blockquote> and BBCode forums usually achieve it using:
[quote="Author on [url=http://example.com/]Another Site[/url]"]

Discourse could use the HTML or BBCode syntax too, or they could use something more like [quote="Author, post:1, topic:82572"]Foo bar[/quote]

For example, [quote="Author, url:example.com"]Foo bar[/quote] that would render just like [quote="Author, post:1, topic:82572"]Foo bar[/quote] except the word “Author” would take you to example.com rather than post:1, topic:82572

While oneboxing is great it doesn’t seem to give any control over what bit is quoted—although I might be mistaken about that?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, am I making more sense?

9

You can already do

From Discourse

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with

> From [Discourse](https://www.discourse.org)
>
> **Escape email silos**
> Engage in searchable discussions with your most avid customers, superfans, and fellow team members – every day. Let everyone discover what you do, how you do it, and join in on the conversation.
3 Likes
10

I don’t think that’s being treated a title/citation in the way [quote="Author, post:1, topic:82572"] formats/converts “Author” into a link and adds the “expand/collapse” & “go to” buttons on the left, but it looks better than having the link outside the quote box/block :slight_smile:

11

Indeed. That’s just a workaround.

1 Like
12

Found more support for the idea:

http://html5doctor.com/cite-and-blockquote-reloaded/

13

I guess another workaround could be:

Although it would be far better for users & SEO if that was a clickable link.